The present invention relates to a card shuffler for shuffling or intermixing playing cards, and has particular application for use in the game of blackjack.
In the game of blackjack as played in the major casinos, a good intermix of cards is necessary to obtain a random arrangement of the cards and to thwart the efforts of card counters, i.e. persons who keep track of the particular cards played to determine, e.g., the balance of high and low cards remaining in the dealer's card stack yet to be played. However, even for dealers who shuffle cards very fast requires a certain amount of time, which takes away from the time available for playing the game, thus reducing the amount of playing time. Moreover, the customer's interest in the game typically wanes during the time that the dealer attends to shuffling the cards and this may cause some players to leave the playing table.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a card shuffler for shuffling of playing cards to eliminate shuffling time spent by the dealer.
It is another object of the invention to provide a card shuffler which provides a good intermix of several decks of playing cards.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a card shuffler which shuffles played cards and places them back into the dealer's supply of cards in a cyclical manner so that the dealer not only has a continuous supply of cards, but also that the card counters will not be able to determine with any degree of accuracy the balance of high and low cards to be dealt soon. Because, as compared to games where the dealer shuffles and plays to the "end" of his card supply, there is no "end" of the card supply when the played cards are immediately shuffled and placed back with the other shuffled cards for the dealer.
It is a still a further object of the invention to provide a card shuffler having a card through-put which will exceed, or at least keep pace with, the rate at which the cards are used.